Next morning, faithful to promise, the Enchantress sailed into the bay and came to an anchor within a biscuit throw of the pier. Chartering a dinghy, I pulled myself off to her, and stepped aboard. An old man and a boy were engaged washing down, and to them I introduced myself and business. Then for half an hour I devoted myself to overhauling her thoroughly. She was a nice enough little craft, well set up, and from her run looked as if she might possess a fair turn of speed; the gear was in excellent order, and this was accounted for when the old man told me she had been repaired and thoroughly overhauled that selfsame year.
Having satisfied myself on a few other minor points, I pulled ashore and again went up through the gardens to the agents’ office. Mr. Matchem was delighted to hear that I liked the yacht well enough to think of hiring her at their own price (a rather excessive one, I must admit), and, I don’t doubt, would have supplied me with a villa in Bournemouth, and a yachting box in the Isle of Wight, also on their own terms, had I felt inclined to furnish them with the necessary order. But fortunately I was able to withstand their temptations, and having given them my cheque for the requisite amount, went off to make arrangements, and to engage a crew.
Before nightfall I had secured the services of a handy lad in place of the old man who had brought the boat round from Poole, and was in a position to put to sea. Accordingly next morning I weighed anchor for a trip round the Isle of Wight. Before we had brought the Needles abeam I had convinced myself that the boat was an excellent sailer, and when the first day’s cruise was over I had found no reason to repent having hired her.
And I would ask you here, is there any other amusement to compare with yachting? Can anything else hope to vie with it? Suppose a man to be a lover of human craftmanship—then what could be more to his taste than a well-built yacht? Is a man a lover of speed? Then what more could he wish for than the rush over the curling seas, with the graceful fabric quivering under him like an eager horse, the snowy line of foam driving away from either bow, and the fresh breeze singing merrily through the shrouds, bellying out the stretch of canvas overhead till it seems as if the spars must certainly give way beneath the strain they are called upon to endure!
Is a man a lover of the beautiful in nature? Then from what better place can he observe earth, sky, and sea than from a yacht’s deck? Thence he views the stretch of country ashore, the dancing waves around him, the blue sky flaked with fleecy clouds above his head, while the warm sunshine penetrates him through and through till it finds his very heart and stays there, making a better, and certainly a healthier, man of him.
Does the world ever look so fair as at daybreak, when Dame Nature is still half asleep, and the water lies like a sheet of shimmering glass, and the great sun comes up like a ball of gold, with a solemnity that makes one feel almost afraid? Or at night when, anchored in some tiny harbour, the lights are twinkling ashore, and the sound of music comes wafted across the water, with a faintness that only adds to its beauty, to harmonise with the tinkling of the waves alongside. Review these things in your mind and then tell me what recreation can compare with yachting?
Not having anything to hurry me, and only a small boy and my own thoughts to keep my company, I took my time; remained two days in the Solent, sailed round the island, put in a day at Ventnor, and so back to Bournemouth. Then, after a day ashore, I picked up a nice breeze and ran down to Torquay to spend another week sailing slowly back along the coast, touching at various ports, and returning eventually to the place I had first hailed from.
In relating these trifling incidents it is not my wish to bore my readers, but to work up gradually to that strange meeting to which they were the prelude. Now that I can look back in cold blood upon the circumstances that brought it about, and reflect how narrowly I escaped missing the one event which was destined to change my whole life, I can hardly realize that I attached such small importance to it at the time. Somehow I have always been a firm believer in Fate, and indeed it would be strange, all things considered, if I were not. For when a man has passed through so many extraordinary adventures as I have, and not only come out of them unharmed, but happier and a great deal more fortunate than he has really any right to be, he may claim the privilege, I think, of saying he knows something about his subject.
And, mind you, I date it all back to that visit to the old home, and to my uncle’s strange reception of me, for had I not gone down into the country I should never have quarrelled with him, and if I had not quarrelled with him I should not have gone back to the inn in such a dudgeon, and in that case I should probably have left the place without a visit to the bar, never have seen the advertisement, visited Bournemouth, hired the yacht or—but there I must stop. You must work out the rest for yourself when you
